Dr. Alexandra Birch is a professional violinist and historian who is presently a PhD candidate at UC Santa Barbara, and fellow at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Advanced Genocide Studies. She also holds a BM, MM, and DMA from Arizona State University in violin performance. Her current project Sonic Terror: Music, Murder, and Migration in the USSR investigates the contemporaneous atrocities of the Holocaust and Gulag via recovered musical scores and soundscapes creating a humanizing look at incomprehensible violence.